Major Exhibition Exploring Cartier’s Inspirations from Islamic Art and Design
Makes North American Premiere in Spring 2022 at Dallas Museum of Art
Co-organized by the DMA and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris,
in Collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and with the Support of Maison Cartier,
Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity Showcases over 400 Objects,
Including Iconic Cartier Pieces and Works of Islamic Art
from Local and International Collections
Exhibition Design Conceived by Renowned Studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Dallas, TX – Updated April 18, 2022 – In spring 2022, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) will be the sole North American venue for Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity, a major exhibition tracing inspirations from Islamic art and design, including from Louis Cartier’s exquisite collection of Persian and Indian art, on the creations of the Maison Cartier from the early 20th century to present day. Co-organized by the DMA and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and with the support of Maison Cartier, the exhibition brings together over 400 objects from the holdings of Cartier, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris), the Musée du Louvre, the Keir Collection of Islamic Art on loan to the Dallas Museum of Art, and other major international collections. Through strong visual juxtapositions and new scholarly research, the exhibition explores how Cartier’s designers adapted forms and techniques from Islamic art, architecture, and jewelry, as well as materials from India, Iran, and the Arab lands, synthesizing them into a recognizable, modern stylistic language unique to the Maison Cartier. Cartier and Islamic Art will make its US premiere in Dallas from May 14 through September 18, 2022, following its presentation at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, from October 21, 2021, through February 20, 2022.
Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity is co-curated by Sarah Schleuning, The Margot B. Perot Senior Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the DMA; Dr. Heather Ecker, the former Marguerite S. Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Curator of Islamic and Medieval Art at the DMA; Évelyne Possémé, Chief Curator of Ancient and Modern Jewelry at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris; and Judith Hénon, Curator and Deputy Director of the Department of Islamic Art at the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The exhibition design is conceived by renowned studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), which is creating a contemporary display that offers enhanced opportunities for close looking and analysis of form. The Presenting Sponsor for the exhibition in Dallas is PNC Bank.
“For over a century, Cartier and its designers have recognized and celebrated the inherent beauty and symbolic values found in Islamic art and architecture, weaving similar elements into their own designs. This bridging of Eastern and Western art forms speaks exactly to the kinds of cross-cultural connections the DMA is committed to highlighting through our programming and scholarship,” said Dr. Agustín Arteaga, the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director. “Not only does this exhibition present our audiences with the opportunity to explore Cartier’s dazzling designs, but it also spotlights the strength of our powerhouse Islamic Art and Decorative Arts and Design departments, as well as those of our colleagues at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Louvre.”
“The design strategies in this exhibition—motif, pattern, color, and form—reveal the inspirations, innovations, and aesthetic wonder present in the creations of the Maison Cartier. Focused through the lens of Islamic art, the designs reveal how the Maison migrates and manifests these styles over time, as well as how they are shaped by individual creativity,” said Sarah Schleuning.
Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity explores the origins of Islamic influence on Cartier through the cultural context of Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the figure of Louis J. Cartier (1875–1942), a partner and eventual director of Cartier’s Paris branch, and a collector of Islamic art. Louis encountered Islamic art through various sources, including the major exhibitions of Islamic art in Paris in 1903 and 1912 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which were held to inspire new forms of modern design, and a pivotal exhibition of masterpieces of Islamic art in Munich in 1910. Paris was also a major marketplace for Islamic art and a gathering place of collectors. It was around this time that Cartier and his designers began to experiment with new modes of design, looking to Japanese textiles, Chinese jades, Indian jewelry, and the arts and architecture of the Islamic world to expand upon the “garland style” that had brought success to the house at the turn of the 20th century. Louis Cartier’s own collection of Persian and Indian paintings, manuscripts, and other luxury objects—reconstructed in this exhibition for the first time in nearly 80 years—also served as inspiration for these new designs, and together these influences would be essential to the development of a new aesthetic called “style moderne" and later “Art Deco” at Cartier.
Bringing together over 400 objects from the DMA’s own holdings and other major international collections, Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity presents a rare opportunity to encounter not only a wide array of iconic Cartier objects, but also their original sources of inspiration. The exhibition showcases works of Cartier jewelry and luxury objects alongside historical photographs, design drawings, archival materials, and works of Islamic art, including those displayed in the Paris and Munich exhibitions and in Louis’s own collection, as well as works bearing motifs that would become part of Cartier’s lexicon of forms. Additionally, digital technologies will offer insight into the creative process at the Maison, from an original source object to a motif, to its adaptation as a jewelry design, and finally to its execution in metal, stones, and organic materials.
Juxtaposing Cartier jewels, drawings, and archival photographs with examples of Islamic art that bear similar forms and ornaments, Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity illustrates the inspiration, adaptation, and recombination of motifs deriving from Islamic sources in Cartier’s design for jewelry and luxury objects. These include a range from geometric to naturalistic forms and Chinese designs (cloud collars and interlocking shapes) that were naturalized in the Islamic lands under the Mongol and Timurid rulers of the Middle East and India since the 13th century.
The exhibition also touches on the material and technical sources of inspiration derived from Louis’s youngest brother Jacques’ travels to India and Bahrain in the early 20th century. From these locales, and other neighboring regions, Cartier imported new materials to introduce into its work, including carved emeralds and other multicolored engraved gemstones. Discoveries gleaned from these travels spurred the use of novel color combinations drawing from Islamic sources, one of the most distinctive aspects of the Maison’s early 20th-century designs. They also inspired the use of new techniques, most notably Cartier’s signature Tutti Frutti style. From the 1920s onward, Islamic pieces themselves—such as enameled plaques, shards of pottery, stone amulets, textiles, or miniatures taken from paintings—were sometimes gathered in a stock called apprêts and incorporated into new Cartier creations.
The exhibition traces each of these stylistic developments, linking them to actual or probable Islamic source material and revealing the expertise of the jeweler’s eye in mediating forms and creating some of Cartier’s most renowned and recognizable styles today.
“PNC Bank has a legacy of investing in the communities we serve through broad support of the arts, as we understand and advocate for the economic, social and civic impacts a thriving arts and culture community brings to our city,” said Brendan McGuire, PNC regional president for North Texas. “The opportunity to continue our strategic partnership with the Dallas Museum of Art, as they create local access to globally renowned art, is fundamental to our work in this space and in North Texas.”
Exhibition Catalogue
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue designed by Coline Aguettaz and published by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in French and English editions. The catalogue will feature essays and contributions by co-curators Sarah Schleuning, Évelyne Possémé, Judith Hénon, and Heather Ecker; the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director Dr. Agustín Arteaga; Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, Director Olivier Gabet and President Pierre-Alexis Dumas; and Cartier Collection curator Pascale Lepeu, as well as Cartier’s Head of Archives, Violette Petit, and Image, Style, and Heritage Director Pierre Rainero.
Exhibition Sponsors
Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity is co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre and with the support of Cartier. The Presenting Sponsor for this exhibition is PNC Bank. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA Members and donors, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture.
About the Dallas Museum of Art
Established in 1903, the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is among the 10 largest art museums in the country. With a free general admission policy and community outreach efforts, the DMA is distinguished by its commitment to research, innovation, and public engagement. At the heart of the Museum and its programs is its global collection, which encompasses 25,000 works and spans 5,000 years of history, representing a full range of world cultures. Located in the nation’s largest arts district, the Museum acts as a catalyst for community creativity, engaging people of all ages and backgrounds with a diverse spectrum of programming, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events, and dramatic and dance presentations. The DMA is an Open Access institution, allowing all works believed to be in the public domain to be freely available for downloading, sharing, repurposing, and remixing without restriction. For more information, visit dma.org.
About the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Located in the Marsan Wing of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs was founded in 1882 with the mission of promoting the applied arts and developing lasting links between industry and culture, design, and production. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs houses and preserves over 800,000 works of art from French national collections, including fashion, furniture, jewelry, graphic arts, gold and silverware, glassware, and ceramics. In adherence to its original charter, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs strives “to keep alive in France the culture of the arts which seeks to make useful things beautiful.” Continually promoting ties with designers in various fields, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is the largest decorative arts museum in continental Europe. The Museum's policy of acquiring works is dynamic and resourceful, while the numerous exhibitions presented each year are a staple of the Parisian cultural landscape.
About Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Founded in 1981, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is an interdisciplinary design studio based in New York. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. The studio’s cross genre work has been distinguished with the first grant awarded in the field of architecture from the MacArthur Foundation and TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" list.
DS+R completed two of the largest architecture and planning initiatives in New York City’s recent history: the High Line and the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The studio has also worked with global cultural institutions, including the Broad in Los Angeles and the V&A in London, to expand access to the arts. Most recently, the studio completed two projects that have reshaped New York’s cultural landscape: the surgical renovation and expansion of MoMA, and The Shed, a start-up multi-arts institution originally conceived by DS+R.
DS+R’s approach to rethinking cultural institutions and civic spaces grew out of self-generated and alternative projects that blur the boundaries between architecture, art, and performance. Many of the studio’s independent works engage materials indigenous to the site, from Traffic, a guerilla installation of 3,000 traffic cones organized in a grid in New York’s Columbus Circle, to the Blur Building, a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the Swiss Expo. The studio is co-creator, -producer, and -director of its most recent self-generated work, The Mile-Long Opera, a free choral performance featuring 1,000 singers atop the High Line. The studio has also researched, curated, and designed a number of interactive installations, including the Costume Institute’s Charles James: Beyond Fashion and Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, which recorded two of the highest exhibition attendances in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and Exit, an immersive data-driven installation investigating global human migration patterns, most recently exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The studio is currently working on The Hare with Amber Eyes at the Jewish Museum in New York, and on an environmental design for Deep Blue Sea, a collaboration with choreographer Bill T. Jones that will debut at the Park Avenue Armory. For more information, visit dsrny.com.
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